What to Do This Week in the Garden

Perennials: Continue dividing and transplanting early blooming perennials. Cut more flowers for drying. Continue to pull weeds before they go to seed. Plant early blooming bulbs. Wait until late October to plant tulips.

Flowers: Take in tender aquatic plants and tropical fish from ponds. Collect seed from favorite annuals. Make note of the best location for annuals to fill in bare spots in the perennial garden. Remove spent annuals and add to compost. Sow hardy annuals in prepared beds or in a cold frame.

Vegetables and fruits: Propagate herbs from new growth and transplant into pots for winter use. Harvest basil before the first frost. Do not cut back asparagus until after the first frost. Plant cover crops in bare areas. Annual rye will germinate in cool weather. Cover cropping chokes out weeds and adds valuable organic matter when it is tilled under in the spring. When harvesting winter squash allow it to cure for a day or so before storing in a cool place.

Trees and shrubs: Continue applying deer repellent. Make plans for winter protection —with spray products on the market, net barriers or sturdy fencing. Continue planting evergreens through Oct. 15. Keep them well watered. Needled evergreens naturally lose their inner or oldest foliage this time of year. Collect some for a fine mulch under acid loving plants such as azalea, rhododendron and blueberries.

Houseplants: Bring in houseplants if you haven’t already. Repot if necessary and check for insect pests. Discard weak or unsightly specimens.

General: Continue to take garden notes and photographs. Put weather proof markers on perennials and new shrubs — a time consuming task, but valuable for those of us who forget the names of plants as well as people.

Bill Cary's idea of a good weekend is to dig in a few dozen bulbs, turn the compost pile, pull weeds for a couple of hours and fill the car twice with
new annuals from the nursery. He grew up in Louisville, Ky. His gardening was limited to growing parsley and impatiens on the windowsill of Manhattan walkups until the mid-1990s when he bought a rundown old chicken farm on 8
acres in the Hudson Valley. Now he spends his weekends chasing deer, hacking away at invasive shrubs and vines and wondering why he doesn't have more meadow and less lawn.